watchdog: introduce watchdog.open_timeout commandline parameter

[linux-2.6-microblaze.git] / Documentation / watchdog / watchdog-parameters.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-parameters.txt b/Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-parameters.txt
index 0b88e33..32d3606 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-parameters.txt
@@ -8,6 +8,14 @@ See Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.rst for information on
 providing kernel parameters for builtin drivers versus loadable
 modules.
 
+The watchdog core parameter watchdog.open_timeout is the maximum time,
+in seconds, for which the watchdog framework will take care of pinging
+a running hardware watchdog until userspace opens the corresponding
+/dev/watchdogN device. A value of 0 (the default) means an infinite
+timeout. Setting this to a non-zero value can be useful to ensure that
+either userspace comes up properly, or the board gets reset and allows
+fallback logic in the bootloader to try something else.
+
 
 -------------------------------------------------
 acquirewdt: